So what is it with this crown icon Slashdot uses for the "Government" category? Where do I complain or take exception to this? Haven't Slashdot's editors noticed that monarchy is, if not globally deprecated, clearly on it's way out?

My suspicion is that some form of classic tech geek libertarianism is at work here. Libertarians are always trying to demonize government by separating it from the people whom government is of, by, and for these days, in any even loosely representative form. Libertarians tell us that government is the problem, trying to avoid the rather sensitive issue that WE are the government, or at least, are trying to be.

Putting a crown on it does the trick of disconnecting it from accountability, de-personalizing it into something out of our control. It discourages participation. This is the effect libertarians of most stripes want it to have, insisting that democracy should be nothing more than a fad on the way to some individualistic libertopia that looks suspiciously less egalitarian, and thus more like the authoritarian feudalism we left for democracy to begin with. You won't find many libertarians admitting this, however; those who do tend not to be libertarians of any large degree of faith.

But aside from the rhetorical political subtext, the simpler problem is that it's an anachronism. Monarchies dominated in centuries past - but we don't live there anymore.